Brexit
The Brief, powered by FACEBOOK – Sold down the river
Even those of us who have the rosiest impressions of our politicians know that they all twist the truth. Most get away with it, but the biggest lies have a nasty habit of catching up with them.
Time for Boris to stop ‘passing the buck’
Bluster, bluff and a freewheeling approach to facts have been the hallmark of the attitude of Boris Johnson to the problems Brexit posed for Northern Ireland, writes Dick Roche.
The Brief, powered by FACEBOOK – Bluff, bravado and a fragile border
Divorces tend not to bring out the best in people and the UK’s divorce from the EU continues to produce some pretty unedifying behaviour and foolish bravado.
The Brief, powered by APPLIA – The price of unfinished business
It would be something of an understatement to say that there have been a few teething problems in the first two months of the brave new EU-UK trading world. The stories of rotting fish, visa-less musicians and lorries turned away...
The Brief, powered by FACEBOOK – The horse and his cart of euros
The €750 billion Eurobond to pay for the bloc’s recovery from the COVID pandemic “will pave the way for a treasury and common EU taxation”, a cross-party group of EU lawmakers have argued on these pages this week. It’s a...
The Brief, powered by FACEBOOK – Another pointless act
The theatre and live music are two of the joys of life that have fallen victim to the coronavirus pandemic. After a year of silence in our theatres, concert halls and stadiums, with vaccine programmes moving apace (touch wood!), we should be able to enjoy these delights again in the coming months.
Commission right to call London’s bluff
The UK Government has been shamelessly using the Commission’s gaffe about Article 16 of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol in its attempts to avoid the blame for post-Brexit problems and to lever additional concessions from Brussels, writes Dick Roche.
The Article 16 row is liable to happen again unless lessons are learned
The row over the European Commission's short-lived plan to use the Northern Ireland Protocol to stop exports of COVID-19 vaccines is over for now. But it could easily flare up again, writes John Bruton.
The Brief, powered by GSMA – The protocol price
Accepting the Northern Ireland Protocol was the price that the UK's Conservative MPs had to pay for Brexit. Even so, they did so very reluctantly, at the fourth time of asking, and only after replacing Theresa May with Boris Johnson as prime minister.
A disunited kingdom
The EU-made "crisis" with the Northern Ireland Protocol is an opportunity for Boris Johnson to distract domestic audience from the threat that his Brexit spells for the unity of the United Kingdom, writes Dick Roche.
The Brief, powered by Facebook – Some already miss the UK
It’s not going to be easy to sweep the EU’s vaccines mess under the carpet. Several media across Europe are now calling out those responsible for the “fiasco” over the way the European Commission has handled vaccine deals with the...
The Brief, powered by Facebook – Von der Leyen’s worst week
The European Commission is under tremendous pressure. It is struggling to make sure that companies that produce vaccines, for which it has paid €2.7 billion in advance and with which it has signed contracts, stop sending their vaccines elsewhere, harming the interests of the Europeans.
A question of moral leadership
Out of the EU, the UK is in a foreign policy tailspin. Boris Johnson’s moral leadership is in question and government decisions are tarnishing diplomatic relations, writes Emilie-Louise Purdie.
The Brief, powered by VDMA – The lost art of diplomacy
There is nothing like a break-up to prompt a few rounds of point-scoring and petty one-upmanship. The Brexit divorce process is more giving than most. The UK may be over and out of the bloc, legally at least, but there...
The Brief – Rotting in the docks
The images of then UKIP leader Nigel Farage floating in a dinghy on the River Thames – encountering a flotilla of Remainers led by Bob Geldof and doling out profanity like candy – is one of the memories of the...
The Brief – Letter from the UK
Two days after the UK left the EU’s single market, England was placed into its third national lockdown on 3 January, joining Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who had already imposed their own restrictions. With people confined to their homes...
Don’t forget about Europe’s Northern Partners
In designing the European security architecture, how can Norwegian and EU priorities in defence and security be prudently squared against one another to ensure that both sides mutually benefit from the partnership, ask Kinga Brudzinska and Lucia Rybnikárová.
The Brief, powered by Facebook – A journey without destination
You can tell that it’s squeaky bum time, as Alex Ferguson was so fond of saying. Industry groups and think-tanks are rushing to the printers to publish warnings of doom for their sector if Boris Johnson and the EU decide they can’t or won’t compromise on a post-Brexit trade deal in the next few days.
The Brief – The triumph of the political will
With wearisome predictability, the talks on a post-Brexit EU-UK trade deal will come down to one final last week of negotiations, with a summit in Brussels at the end of it, on 19 November. Both sides say they are nearly there. A deal “is there to be done”, says UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Fish and Brexit chips
Boris Johnson's government should beware of pinning an entire EU-UK trade deal on fisheries, the issue of energy is far more serious and important, writes Alexander Temerko.
The Channel Tunnel: the other Brexit border?
On 8 October 2020, the European Parliament approved legislation to ensure safe Channel Tunnel operations post-Brexit transition. In addition to COVID-19, Brexit will have far-reaching consequences for cross-Channel border connections. History highlights what is at stake.
The Brief, powered by logos – One last Mexican stand-off
It was perhaps inevitable that after more than four years (longer if you include David Cameron’s ill-fated attempt to renegotiate the UK’s EU membership status), the Brexit process would end with one last Mexican stand-off. And so it goes that...
The UK, the EU and fisheries: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Just as Europeans aren’t asking for the sacrifice of British businesses in order to maintain access to the EU single market, we cannot accept the sacrifice of our fishermen, write Pierre Karleskind, Nathalie Loiseau and 57 other MEPs.